Monday, January 14, 2013

As a student myself, years and years (and years....but we won't go there) ago, I didn't like Geometry. I didn't understand it, didn't see a need for it, and certainly didn't enjoy it. So how did it become one of my very favorite things to teach? I think that occurred when I realized there were so many fun things you could do with Geometry when presenting it to youngsters. I wish some of my teachers 'back in the day' had presented it a little differently. I might have actually had a good time with it! I decided to dedicate this blog post to a smorgasbord of Geometry FUN! Check out the some amazing interactive websites, blog posts, and products all dedicated to GEOMETRY!

Need a quick online interactive practice for your kiddos at a computer station? This website (click image) will take you to a good handful of geometry games with SIMPLE instructions and very little clicking to get started! Let your students try their hand at classifying triangles, classifying polygons, or other geometric figures.

Here's another website with quick and easy access to a variety of geometric games, including shapes, angles, and transformations. This site is a little more challenging than the previous one, so if you teach geometry 3rd grade and up, this might be a better place to start. The image will take you there.

Finally, this one is a site that our school bought a membership to after a 30 day trial. It's IXL math. They have some free games and promos that you and your kids can investigate to see if it's worth a subscription. Our students LOVE the site and welcome any time they can grab to practice their math on IXL. As an educator, I love the immediate feedback given to students if they miss something. A small tutorial "reteaching" that skill pops up when they miss a question. Check it out!

Some of you know I'm totally into my Math notebooking these days. I started them last year with my students and became a believer that if students can journal about what they've learned in their own words, with their own explanations, then they know it! I started creating some math notebooks for my teammates and I to use along side our Math series. They've been a big hit. I finished the Geometry one and can't wait for some classrooms to give it a whirl! **SO...the FIRST 3 teachers that teach grades 2-4 that want to try it out, give me a shout out in the blog post comments with your email and I'll send it to you FREE!

FINALLY, grab a FREEBIE while you're here!
I always loved putting out some solid shapes on the table and letting students make some guesses on the number of faces, edges, and vertices each solid shape has. They record with their cooperative groups, then we discuss and clarify any misconceptions. It's a fun way to investigate shapes!